1,720,957 research outputs found
Desertification and Environmental Vulnerability. Preface
Full text linkThe term “desertification” (which is somewhat misleading) is not applied to hyper-arid zones (deserts). It is used rather to refer to a process resulting from anthropocentric and natural factors, such as land over-exploitation, overgrazing, mechanized farming, bad irrigation practices, illegal and excessive logging, bush and forest fires and deforestation due to population increase; along with these human activities, a range of climatic factors are believed to influence the process of land degradation (year-round aridity, high variability in rainfall, recurrent drought and so on). Due to these multiple causes, combatting desertification involves a wide range of measures and contributes to combatting poverty, to structural reforms and to sustainable development. The official definition of “desertification” was formulated during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), as: “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities”. (Art. 1, available at http://www.unccd.int)........
Influence of Climatic Changes and Human Activities on the Salinization Process of Coastal Aquifer Systems
No full textIn the present research, two arid coastal zones of the Mediterranean region (mean annual precipitation about 440 mm/a), have been investigated for evaluating the qualitative and quantitative impact of both human activities and climatic changes on the groundwater resources and the hydrological cycle in general. In particular, the hydrographic network of the Akrotiri (Cyprus) coastal aquifer system is strongly controlled by engineering handicrafts that have induced a quality worsening of the groundwater resources. Due to over-pumping in the central sector of the area, a lowering of the piezometric level of about 15 m has been observed. As a consequence, a salinization process has occurred in the coastal sector with a mean annual salinization velocity of the salty water front varying between 47 and 97 cm/a (period 1964-1996). Due to the high salinity values, the water is at present unsuitable for irrigation use. The second case study is represented by the alluvial plain of Licata (southern Sicily, Italy), where the evolution of the Salso River (in Italian the name means ’Salty River’) and the coastal dynamics, characterised by repeated marine transgressions and regressions, qualitatively and quantitatively influenced the underground water resources. Also the anthropogenic activities played a crucial role, especially the farming activity as it is largely documented by the occurrence of numerous greenhouses covering most of the plain. The water depth of the unconfined, mainly sandy, aquifer developed in the Quaternary deposits is between 0.3 m and locally 5 m from the surface, while the principal alimentation occurs via infiltration from precipitations and lateral outflow from the Salso River
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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